


An Act of True Love

by ellacj



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elsa accidentally freezes Regina's heart, and leaves Emma with only this advice: Only an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart. It's up to Emma to find the one who can free Regina from the curse, only that person is closer than she thinks.</p><p>SwanQueen one shot, set post-3x22. Spoilers for everything aired. What happens when I stay up too late on a Friday night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Act of True Love

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to make this a 500-word fic where Regina is permanently frozen, but I couldn't do that to my favorite ladies. Let me know what you think of the new ending!

* * *

Emma reaches out, but it’s too late. The bolt of icy power hits Regina square in the chest, and the queen stops in her tracks. A strangled sound escapes Emma’s throat, and she turns to a horrified Elsa.

“Bring her back,” Emma begs, her voice suddenly hoarse. “You have to bring her back.”

Elsa shakes her head slowly. “I can’t. Only an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart.”

Emma stares blankly at Regina, now engulfed in shimmering blue ice crystals. “An act of True Love.” She sighs. “I’m gonna bring you back,” she murmurs, studying Regina’s frozen form. Even obscured by the ice, she can see every detail on Regina’s face. Even the smattering of freckles she tries so hard to cover up with makeup even though Emma wishes she wouldn’t. “Even though I know you hate me, I’m gonna bring you back.”

She resists the urge to touch Regina’s face – the queen is probably still conscious in her frozen form – and looks over at Elsa. “You need to get away from this town,” she says, more harshly than she intended. “Before anyone else gets hurt.” Without waiting for a reply, she turns and begins running home.

* * *

By the next morning, everyone has either seen or heard about the queen standing in front of Granny’s, a frozen look of terror etched on her face.

Henry tried his best to wake her with an act of True Love, but it was to no avail. He hugged her, kissed her cheek, even shed a few tears over her icy form, but there wasn’t so much as a finger twitch to show for it.

“Only one act of True Love per each set of two,” Rumpel explained when Emma asked him. “Regina broke Zelena’s curse by giving Henry True Love’s kiss; therefore he cannot be the one to save her.”

Emma growls in frustration as she stands in front of the door to a small wooden shack in the woods. Regina has been frozen for over twelve hours, and Emma is determined to save her. That doesn’t, however, mean she has to enjoy this conversation.

Emma squares her shoulders and knocks smartly on the door.

Robin opens it a moment later, brief shock registering on his face when he sees Emma. “Emma Swan. Always a pleasure. Do come in,” he says kindly.

After Marian has brought them tea and joined them in the living room, Emma sighs. Best get to the point so she can leave and be done with this. “Look, I don’t really want to be here right now, but I swore to myself I’d do this. I’m sure you’ve heard about Regina.”

Marian stiffens as Robin answers. “That I have. Frozen in the street. I don’t know what that’s got to do with me, though.”

Emma bites her lip and casts her gaze quickly to Marian before turning back to Robin. “There’s a way to help her. Elsa told me before she… ran off that an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart.”

There is a very pregnant pause. Emma’s sure that she could cut the tension with her father’s sword if she had it with her.

Finally, Robin speaks. “And you think that I can deliver that.”

Marian grips her husband’s arm tightly; possessively.

Robin sighs. “I know that the pixie dust said that I am Regina’s soulmate. And that is absolutely true; however, a soulmate is not the same as a True Love.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A True Love is obviously a person you love unconditionally, without fail, until the day you die. Marian is that for me. A soulmate, on the other hand, is a person without whom you may feel lost, ungrounded, unsure of yourself. For most people these two things can be found in the same person, but in some cases a person’s soulmate is either familial or platonic. That is the case between Regina and myself.”

Emma looks at him with pleading eyes. “Can’t you at least try? You said it yourself, without her you’d feel lost. You need her, and you might be able to save her.”

Robin glances uncertainly at his wife.

Marian bites her lip and thinks a moment before sighing. “Go. If you’re the only one that can save the Que- _Regina_ , then you should.”

Robin gives a small smile and presses a kiss to Marian’s temple. “I love you so much,” he murmurs before standing up and facing Emma. “Let’s go.”

Emma leads him to Granny’s Diner, where Regina stands in the street, arm still half-raised in an attempt at self-defense, eyes wide in a look of terror usually worn for a split second before her mask of indifference is replaced. Emma feels the same tug in her heart she always does when she looks at Regina, but this time it is accompanied by something else – grief.

She misses the cutting remarks she knows Regina never means, misses the subtle smirks Regina throws her behind Snow’s back. She misses Regina’s voice and Regina’s smile and Regina’s sass and _dammit, Swan, it hasn’t even been a day. Get it together._

Emma watches as Robin walks forward and hesitantly places his hands on Regina’s waist. He slowly presses his soft, warm lips to Regina’s hard and cold ones, holding it for a few seconds.

There’s no change. Regina remains as still as ever, skin growing ever paler with every hour.

Robin walks back over to Emma with an apologetic expression on his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I did try.”

Emma nods. “Thank you.” She’s secretly glad, and more than a little guilty for it, that Robin failed. It means that he isn’t Regina’s True Love.

 _It’s not like she’ll ever like you back_ , a voice chides in the back of her mind. _She’s tragically heterosexual. And in love with a married man. And hates you._

“You should try it yourself,” Snow suggests when Emma tells her about Robin’s failed attempt at saving Regina later that day. They’re at the station, having moved Regina with much difficulty off of the street and into a cell to give her a bit of privacy.

Emma shakes her head. “An act of True Love must be mutual,” she recites, remembering something she read in a spellbook. One of Regina’s spellbooks.

Snow raises her eyebrows. She’s known about Emma’s crush on the mayor since Emma first came to Storybrooke, but only recently has Emma admitted the true extent of the crush. It was two months ago that she first used the word “love”, and Snow hasn’t let it go since.

“You never know,” Snow says as she takes a sip of her coffee. “Regina’s always been good at hiding her feelings.”

Emma snorts. “Like she’d ever be into me. She’s straight. And she hates me.”

Snow looks thoughtful. “I remember when I was a little girl Regina had a number of bedfellows behind my father’s back. I remember thinking it was a truly awful thing to do, but that some of them were rather kind.”

“Is there a point to this story?”

Snow makes a face, but continues. “There was one I distinctly remember because she was particularly sweet. She was also she only woman Regina ever had in her bed – that I knew of anyway. Her name was Christina. She was there a few times and she gave me a gift every morning before she left.” Snow’s voice had taken on a certain fondness, and a smile spread across her face. “She was the one who decided that maybe my stepmother’s infidelity wasn’t so bad.”

Emma frowns. “So… Regina’s into chicks?”

“I would assume so. She always spoke so fondly of Christina and she’s the only other lover Regina had that was ever invited back again. I think Regina genuinely liked her.”

“What happened?”

Snow’s features darken. “My father found out about her. Regina was careless one morning and he caught Christina sneaking out through the stables. He had her banished.”

“Harsh.”

“Standard punishment would have been execution. He went easy on her.” Snow pauses “The point is though, that Regina’s been with women before and I’d bet she wouldn’t be against doing it again.”

Emma looks thoughtfully over her shoulder at where Regina stands in the cell. “I’ll stay here tonight,” she says abruptly. “Make sure no one tries anything funny.”

Snow gives Emma a smirk that says _you’re not fooling anyone, Swan_. She sets her coffee on the desk and pulls her daughter into a tight hug. “I love you, Em.”

Emma only hesitates for a second before murmuring into her mother’s shoulder, “Love you too.”

Snow leaves Emma sitting alone at her desk, eyes on Regina. She stops herself from going into the cell. Being that close to Regina could only lead to disaster.

So she stares at the queen’s frozen form from afar, studying the way her lips are just barely parted, the beginnings of a shout never uttered, of words that died on her lips before they could ever live. Emma notices how Regina’s left arm is half-raised, preparing to fire a defensive spell, but her right is just barely reaching behind her as though to protect someone.

Emma feels the tug in her heart before she realizes why. She was standing behind Regina when it happened. Regina was trying to protect Emma and her heart was frozen because of it.

Before she can stop herself, Emma is on her feet and walking toward Regina. Her heart pounds loudly in her chest as she steps into the cell. She’s overestimated the size of the cell, and her breathing becomes uneven at the proximity between them in the small space.

“Hey,” she says, unable to think of what to say. She’s sure the queen can hear her, even if she can’t reply. “I… I’m sorry this happened to you. And I swear I’m trying so hard to get you back.”

Regina remains silent and unmoving.

Emma exhales a long breath. “I’m gonna try something, okay? It’s probably not going to work and I’m so sorry if you’re conscious for this… but here goes nothing.” She leans in slowly and presses her lips to Regina’s. They’re stiff and cold beneath hers and this is not at all how she imagined their first kiss would be.

After a few seconds Emma pulls away in defeat. “Right,” she says, flustered. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

And so she hurries out of the cell in embarrassment. She can hear Regina’s sarcastic voice in her mind.

_“Well of course it didn’t work. A simple kiss won’t do anything. I’m a bit more work than that, dear.”_

Emma decides that she can’t handle being alone in the station with Regina all night, even when the queen is frozen, and hurries out, locking the door behind her.

Sleep eventually finds her that night after more time than she’d care to admit of tossing and turning – and when it does, all she can dream about is kissing Regina for real.

* * *

 It’s been a week now, and Emma is starting to lose hope. Regina still stands in the cell. She hasn’t moved an inch since the night she was frozen.

Emma’s growing desperate now. She even asked Rumpel about time travel, thinking she could go back and bring Daniel to Storybrooke.

Snow’s apartment is too small for both Emma and Henry, so Emma’s been sleeping in Regina’s mansion with Henry. She stayed in the guest room the first night, but on the second she crossed the hall and fell asleep in Regina’s bed. Regina’s pillow smelled like Regina’s shampoo and Regina’s perfume and it just smelled so uniquely _Regina_ that Emma couldn’t stop herself from crying.

She’s slept in Regina’s bed every night since.

Now, it’s late, and she’s promised Snow she’ll stay awake tonight to watch over Regina. At this point all they can do is hope that the spell will wear off with time.

Regina is as silent as ever, and Emma finds herself missing the queen’s voice. She finds that she’d even prefer the volatile relationship she’d first had with Regina to the mayor’s utter absence from her life.

The clock says 1:14 as Emma stands up to pour herself more coffee. Rather than sit back down in her chair, however, she finds herself setting the mug down on the desk and walking over to the cell.

They’ve managed to move Regina into a corner so there’s enough room now for Emma to stand comfortable in the tiny space, but she still feels her heart pounding at the close proximity to Regina.

And she can’t stop the tears.

The moisture builds in her eyes as she takes in Regina’s frozen body. “I’m sorry,” she manages, the words coming out a choked sob. “I’m so, so, sorry.” She reaches out and ghosts her fingers over Regina’s cheek. It’s the first time she’s touched Regina since the night Elsa ripped away the woman she loves.

The tears flow freely now, forming tracks down Emma’s face. She rubs her thumb in light circles over the icy crystals on Regina’s face, not noticing the skin growing warmer beneath her touch.

In fact, she doesn’t notice anything but her own tears until she hears the ragged inhalation of breath. She looks up, eyes wide, as Regina’s eyes meet hers.

“You…” Regina murmurs breathlessly.

“Regina, I-” Emma splutters incredulously.

“I know.” Regina pauses. “Only an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart…”

“…and an act of True Love must be mutual,” Emma finishes, her breath catching in her throat.

Then Regina’s lips are on hers, and it’s slow and it’s soft and this is _exactly_ how Emma imagined their first kiss would be.

“I’m still mad at you,” Regina mutters against Emma’s lips.

Emma can’t help but smile. She kisses Regina once more before pulling back just enough to look her in the eye. “Good. I’ve missed your pissy pouting.”

“I do not _pout_!”

“Please. You’re the _queen_ of pissy pouting.”

Regina pushes her lips into the pout that Emma has come to love. “Shut up and kiss me.”

And Emma does.


End file.
